• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Help gmail app hieroglyphics

H

heviarti

Newbie
So, this is the second attempt to post a thread. I'm really starting to hate this phone. It's apparently nearly impossible to scroll without clicking.

I just upgraded to the RAZR HD from the lg optimus zip. The gmail app is very different, and is much more difficult to operate. There are no tool tips, and I have no way to determine what the hieroglyphs on the controls mean. Why do they do this? Why are there no words? How do the developers expect you to use a program where it is not possible to determine the purpose of the controls? I can't look a picture up in the dictionary. Does anyone know what all these stupid hieroglyphs mean?

Also, another big change seems to be that the app won't check the mail. I have to open the app, and then basically beat the crap out of the touch screen until it checks the mail, since there is no 'check mail' button. I don't even know for sure what it is that I am doing that is causing the app to check the mail. Sometimes I am unsuccessful and return to it later and beat on the screen some more. It doesn't just check the mail when the app is started for some reason. I really miss the app telling me when I had mail rather than having to chase it and prise the mail out of it.

What is the same is the strange behavior of the inbox. For some reason all messages from a recipient appear as one message along with replies to that recipient. I don't get that. Messages should appear individually in chronological order in the inbox, and sent messages should be in the sent box. Why does this app behave so strangely? Today I got a draft caught in one of these message globs and I couldn't get rid of it. When I tried to reply it wouldn't properly parse the craigslist anonymailer address, and placed a truncated version of the address in the recipient field. Since addresses become a button rather than remaining a text entry field it took me a good ten minutes to figure out how to edit the recipient field. I still don't know how I toggled the edit mode. I manually added the address and sent, otherwise I would probably still have a draft stuck in that message group thingamabob.

What is the deal with this app? Does anyone use it successfully? Has anyone gotten it to check for mail on it's own? What do all the hieroglyphs mean? I apologize that I do not know the version of the program. There is no help->about.
 
what. the. frick?

scrolling without clicking? use steady pressure on the screen when scrolling. if you're doing some dainty feather-touch "I don't want to get my hands dirty" type of gesture, then you're going to screw up more often than not.

please explain these "hieroglyphs" you're talking about. I'm using the latest gmail app, and I don't see anything in Egyptian - or anything other than English.

as for the other things, why not check the menu (3 squares)? menu> refresh - to manually check for new messages. and menu> settings> choose your gmail account. make sure "sync gmail" is checked. you can also check your notification settings in there.

most people prefer pictures over words. most people understand that a trashcan icon denotes deleting the message, or that an envelope with a + icon is to create a new message, or that a folder icon is to move that message to a different folder, or that a magnifying glass icon - like anywhere else - is to search.
 
Search, trash, and folder may make sense... but how about 'box down arrow'? These are indeed hieroglyphs. They're pictograms that are meant to represent words. The problem is there's no way to determine the meaning of these hieroglyphs. I am not illiterate. I shouldn't be made that way by these hieroglyphics. As it is I have been using an HTML scratch page with a mailto: link for the lack of an apparent reply button. Last night I finally found the thing due to being logged out on my iPad. 'Arrow pointing to the left' is not a very obvious way to represent 'reply'. If everyone keeps allowing these hieroglyphs, soon everything will be pictures with no method to determine their meaning. Go ahead. Look a picture up in the dictionary.
 
Why not use it and figure it out? Stop expecting everything to be dumbed down. pictures are easier to use to represent an action.
 
And then manage to destroy my inbox with one of these functions? It's the hieroglyphs that amount to dumbing things down. It basically insinuates you are illiterate. Automobiles have the same problem. Can you remember when all the gauges and idiot lights actually had words on them? I do. Now you get to guess. This does not amount to good design.
 
things move forward. with all the random crap of lights on a dashboard now, there's just no damned room for words. if you don't know what an icon means, LOOK IT UP.

my wife's car has an icon that looks like a low-air tire with a !. I'd never seen it before, but I knew it wasn't a flat tire... so looked it up- wouldn't you know it?! it was a low air situation. topped off the tires and went on with my life.
 
heviarti said:
And then manage to destroy my inbox with one of these functions? It's the hieroglyphs that amount to dumbing things down. It basically insinuates you are illiterate.
Click to expand...

If everyone in the world spoke English I could see your point. But they don't. So icons and symbols are used. It's not complicated.
 
That may be, but without any defined standard of iconography nor a definite method to determine the meaning of a given hieroglyph, you're kind of boned. Almost every written language has some form of alphabetical hierarchy which allows a curious party to determine it's location within a dictionary and thusly determine a meaning. There doesn't seem to be a method to determine a meaning for a given hieroglyph in each case. A good chunk of the applications on my phone and my iPad are of limited utility for this reason. The end point here is whether or not there is a provision by the developer for a user to determine their intent with each given hieroglyph. If there is not, someone needs to grab these folks by the stacking swivel and get them to square it away.
 
Two ideas that have not yet come up ...

If there is something you don't like about the Gmail app ... visit GMAIL.com and provide feedback. Providing that feedback in a forum dedicated to the Razr HD/Razr Maxx HD will probably not achieve a great deal.

I played with it a little on the Droid Maxx. If you long press on one of those icons a little window appears with a text hint/equivalent. It will not execute the command it will report the hint.

Good luck.

... Thom
 
Probably the Archive button. It is preferable to use Archive over delete as deleted mail goes away permanently after 30 days.

This is a Google thing. Likely your old Optimus wasn't running a current release of the gmail app. You can configure gmail via imap in the regular email app and you won't have a threaded view.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom